Descent
by spiritofwolf
Summary: Behold, the birth of insanity. Some things, Daniel, are better left unsaid. AngstDay, TUE future timeline, T for disturbing scenes
1. FLASHES

My submission for DP Angst Day. It is unbelievably fun to torture Danny. :D

Disclaimer: Don't own the Phantom.

* * *

Amid the frantic banging on the door of the mansion, Danny briefly wondered why he didn't just phase in. His mind was at once sluggish and racing, not responding and replaying itself on loop. In fact, he also wondered what he was doing in Wisconsin. After... that, he had just blindly flown, and had found himself on Vlad's doorstep.

An annoyed billionare wrenched the door open. "What in the name of- Daniel! Why, what a pleasant-"

He was cut off as Phantom threw himself against him, grabbing his suit and sobbing. "Dead- all dead- explosion, Nasty Burger, all dead- they didn't run, I didn't do anything, gone, gone, dead-"

"Daniel, hold on. Who's dead?"

"Everyone!" The halfa wailed. "Sam and Tuck, Mom, Dad and Jazz! And _I didn't do anything!_"

For once, the perpetually scheming mind of the older halfa ground to a halt.

* * *

The door opened, closed. The black-haired boy remained turned away, lying on his side on the silky white sheets. Vlad had replaced them from the original red, to see better if they were stained with blood. He was dwarfed in the massive bed, frail, insignificant.

"Daniel." The man waited for a response which would never come. "Daniel, you need to eat."

He remained motionless.

Vlad went to his side, twisting his bandaged wrists upwards to check. "Daniel, you need to get up and eat. Think- what would Maddie say?"

Silence filled the room, and the billionare could almost hear the unsaid reply- 'She won't be saying anything now, will she?'

* * *

Staring, blankly, at the white of the paper. Pencil, held limply over the surface.

Stupid diary. Stupid psychologist. Stupid Vlad.

Eyes roved over to the wrinkled photo, tears springing anew at the sight of his ex-loved ones.

The pencil moved, laboriously scratching out the words-

_Once upon a time, there was a boy. A freak. He had powers. Just once, he used them for his own gain. When his parents and friends confronted him, they died. The boy just watched as the explosion blew them to bits. Watched and did nothing. Not to help, not to run, not to turn them intangible, not to fly them away, not to shield them, not to-_

Bile rose in his throat. Jerking, a shaking hand tore the page out and crumpled it. The ball of paper dropped to the ground, pencil following. A chair dragging on the floor, pounding footsteps, a door being thrown open, and retching sounds floating back out into the room.

Vlad Masters sighed, bending down to pick the paper up, and smoothing it out to read the pain and self-reproach contained in the thin pencil markings.

* * *

_Useless._

In front of the extravagant mirror, Danny willed the change over himself. He had discarded the cry of 'Going ghost' ever since... that.

Dulled green eyes stared, unblinking, back at him. Where once was a sparkle of life in the halfa's eyes, now the deaths of his loved ones played out, making him truly look like a ghost.

His white hair. _Tucker told me he was scared when I first came out of the Portal with white hair. He said it brought to mind old people in hospitals, dying. White hair, white sheets, white walls, white doctors._

His emblem. _Sam gave that to me. I asked her how long she took to design it, and she let slip that it took two entire months to finalise it. When I freaked at her for wasting her time on me, she just laughed and said that her time would never be wasted on me._

His hands twitched, moving as if to tear the stylised D off his chest. He hesitated, then gave a muffled scream and sank to the ground, gloved fists clenching tightly. Unable to bear the sight of his ghost form any longer, he raised a fist, fingers curled perfectly level- it caused more damage in fights, he had found- and rammed it hard into his reflection's face.

His strength caused the glass to shatter, and as the shards cascaded down onto him, he withdrew his hand and stared at the ripped bandages on his wrist, and red blood mixed with green-

_Ectoplasmic green-_

With the mere flicker of a thought, a ball of ectoplasm formed in his hand. From experience, he knew that an ectoblast of this strength could disintegrate bits of walls. He poured in more power, the ball growing brighter, and when he ran out of energy, he pointed the hand towards his chest.

His eyes closed, almost relieved, and he let go-

"Daniel!" The roar failed to affect him, but a solid body rammed into his, another gloved arm brushing his own to one side, and the ectoblast soared over his shoulder, grazing it.

"What were you thinking?" Danny opened his eyes, staring dully at Vlad Plasmius shaking him by his shoulders and yelling into his face. "You can't just up and end your life because you lose your loved ones! I'm grieving too, but I don't commit suicide just because Mad- because _she's_ gone!"

The boy remained unresponsive, limply hanging in Plasmius' grip. Vlad sighed frustratedly and allowed his shoulders to slump, gathering him in his arms and carrying him to the first-aid kit. "What am I going to do with you, little badger? Why won't you let me help?" He received no response.

* * *

Vlad found himself awake once more, holding down a thrashing and screaming Danny.

"No...No! Mom, Dad, Jazz, run! Sam, Tuck, get out of here! Please! Don't! ...My fault, my fault all my fault should have turned them all intangible why why why-!" His voice was hoarse, breaking.

The older halfa could feel the waves of agony, sorrow and guilt flooding off the younger boy, putting his own loss at Maddie's death to shame. Sighing, he rubbed at the dark circles under his eyes, silently thanking the heavens that Danny had started to calm down, only muttering the occasional 'My fault-'.

He trailed a hand over the child's heavily bandaged wrists, letting it travel up to the scorch mark on the scrawny upper shoulder- the first when the boy had tried to kill himself through the normal means, forcing Vlad to fly in a doctor to the mansion, the second when the first had failed, driving him to use his ghost powers to end his life. Vlad had barely caught him, managing to knock his aim askew.

_Why? Why was it that misfortune insisted on raining onto both halfas' heads?_

Vlad had no answer to that, even as Danny shuddered awake and stared ahead with haunted eyes.

"Please, Vlad." The billionare looked down at the child. Danny was thoroughly dishevelled, hair a tangled mess, too apathetic to change out of his day-clothes, eyes- whether blue or green- perpetually tortured and haunted.

He had given up on living, Vlad realised, horrified.

"P-please. Just kill me already." His former enemy begged him, the helpless voice breaking something inside of him. "Just end the pain, end the feelings."

And Vlad had to agree, or watch the son of his beloved waste away to a phantom of his former self.


	2. RIPPING

Disclaimer: Don't own the Phantom.

* * *

The Gauntlets pierced into his chest, and everything changed.

All the sorrow in Danny was consolidated, wrapped into Phantom's heart so tightly it would have bled ectoplasm by itself. All the sadness, all the tears, all the cries of anguish and loss were coalesced into Phantom's form, then Vlad _ripped_-

And then there was Fenton, and Phantom, and Phantom hung from Vlad's Gauntlet-encased hands, and the feeling of loss and turmoil tore through him like a gale, ripping his sanity to shreds without his human half to help ease the almost physical pain-

And glowing green eyes flashed open, teeth gritting as Phantom tore the clawed gauntlets out of his bleeding form, two holes gaping and oozing ectoplasm like a physical manifestation of his loss.

Vlad was tossed aside like a rag doll, and before he could move, the Gauntlets were on Phantom's hands in his chest, and there was a tear, and Vlad Masters and Vlad Plasmius slumped against opposite walls.

_Power_, the pure energy from Plasmius called like siren song to the bereaved now-full ghost, and he gave in, subconsciously overshadowing the vampiric ghost and _absorbing_, Vlad becoming Phantom and Phantom drinking in the energy-and the black ooze of the Wisconsin Ghost's evil- and it corrupted, filling into the empty holes where love for family and friends once shone, and Phantom _screamed_.

He screamed as the final wisps of his link to humanity evaporated, as his last connections to the living were overshadowed by a lust for power and destruction and mayhem, the need to _burn_ and _raze _all to the ground until everything was gone- lost in oblivion like how his entire life had collapsed in shambles- as Vlad Plasmius was no more and in his place floated an evil even greater than any wild dream of his, dark as the deepest black holes in space, eyes garnet-red as the blood he would spill over the next ten years; a snake of a tongue whipped out to taste the fear stifling the air.

"D-Dan-" Masters croaked, only to be silenced with a quick blow to his temple.

Dan Phantom was born.


	3. GONE

Disclaimer: Don't own the Phantom.

* * *

Daniel Fenton cowered in the corner. He didn't feel sorrow anymore when he allowed his mind to stray to his family and friends, but as he looked into the crazed eyes of his ghost half, he found he was still susceptible to horror and fear.

Phantom yanked him up by his shirt, his free hand caressing his human half's face almost tenderly. "My humanity," he rasped, and Danny flinched as the claws now sprouting from what had been his hands dug into his cheek, allowing the rattling tongue to ghost over his skin.

Dan smirked. "We wished for all the pain to go away, did we not?" His half-lidded eyes mocked and taunted the boy, daring him to speak. "For all the sorrow and pain to disappear, along with the useless ghost powers that couldn't save them. Well, we got our wish, didn't we? Human self, meet evil ghost self." With a wrench of his arm, Fenton was sent flying, crashing into a table laden with beakers and test tubes.

The glass bit into his skin everywhere, and the chemicals stung. Danny was hoisted up by his evil self, and slammed into the wall forcefully, a hand around his throat holding him inches off the floor as instinct, ground into him by numerous ghost battles, caused him to struggle like a beached fish.

Looking remarkably like Plasmius, Phantom bit into Danny's neck, sucking the liquid of life away from the artery at the side of his neck. Blood flecking his jaws and chin, he tightened his hold around the bleeding neck, leaning in close to Danny's face to croon.

"Die, my humanity," he breathed. Danny's throat was bruised, lungs fighting to draw in breath. His eyes rolled in their sockets. "Die, and let darkness claim the world. _Hush little baby don't say a word_." he sang, giggling drunkenly.

Danny's blue eyes met Vlad's. The billionare had regained consciousness and was now frozen in fright. Unbidden, the thought jumped into his mind: _The fruitloop would have made a good guardian._

With this, and the memories of the caring side of the older halfa gained over the past few days, he mouthed the words: "Run, fruitloop."

Wide-eyed, the billionare backed from the room, then turned tail and fled, and Danny knew he was going to die. _Funny, I always thought I'd fight death more than this._

He thought of Sam. He thought of Tucker, Jazz and his parents. He thought of Vlad, of how his arch-enemy had turned about and provided a supporting pillar when he needed one the most- not that it helped, he added. He thought of Amity Park, his town, thought that someone should warn them of the evil now unleashed upon the world, then realised that he just couldn't care.

Moving his head, he looked into his evil self's eyes, taking his last breath. Dan grinned and said, "Poof."


	4. VOICES

Well, that was fun. I got the feeling that Vlad was kinda OOC, but hmm well. It was fun regardless, and he made me want to read more Vlad-is-Danny's-guardian fics.

I really can't wait for next year's Angst Day. *grins ferally*

Disclaimer: Don't own the Phantom.

* * *

Allowing the body to fall to the floor, Dan reached into its chest and drew out the heart, that was now still and unmoving. The dull red of the organ filled his vision, and unconsciously, he opened his mouth and licked it, feeling the squishing texture across his tongue, new fangs catching on the flesh; then curling his hand into a fist, he crushed it, the blood staining his once-pristine white glove the colour of death.

Unwillingly, his eyes roved over to the corpse of Danny Fenton- for in killing his humanity, he had erased Danny Fenton, erased his past entirely, had he not?- and as lifeless blue met haunted red, the voices came.

_How could you, Danny?_ Sam's voice, disapproving. _Danny Phantom's a hero, not a murderer._

The hell he'd want to be a hero, if this pain was all he'd get-

_You promised, Danny._ Tucker sounded disappointed. _Best friends forever, remember? You killed our best friend._

But he was their best friend, he was Danny, who had failed to-

_You're not my little brother,_ Jazz, horrified. _What have you done to my little brother? **What did you do to Danny, you monster?!**_

He whimpered, curling into himself. Shadows flittered around him, voices, of Tuck, Sam, Jazz, Mo-Madd-Mom, Ja-Dad, whispering, malicious.

_Murderer._

_Monster._

_Jerk._

_Murderer._

"Shut UP!" With a roar, ectoplasmic energy flared out, and the mansion exploded.

Dan stood in the middle of the wreckage, panting eyes on his human body- or where it had been. His body had disintegrated in the blast.

_No humanity._

The voices had stopped.

* * *

Vladimir Masters watched as the spectre flew off into the sky, cackling like a madman.

In the wreckage, red blood, tinged with green, dripped slowly to the ground from a shattered piece of glassware.


End file.
